Tag: Free Speech

Controversies about free expression now saturate the news more than ever before. They certainly erupt whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth. Questions have also arisen as to whether anti-immigration slurs incited post-Brexit attacks on minorities. By ‘expression’ I mean not only words, but also other expressive conduct—whatever messages the burkini sends, it’s causing the French…

The only way forward is to fight against the realities of Islamophobia by fighting for the realization of a new Arab Spring.In the classic 1966 film Battle of Algiers, Ali, a young, illiterate, unemployed bricklayer and draft dodger is arrested in Algiers for petty street crimes (he is a card swindler). In jail, Ali meets, unbeknownst…

How “Je suis Charlie” undermines struggles against oppression.We condemn the Charlie Hebdo killings. We wholeheartedly and unreservedly condemn the killings and believe that no justification exists or can ever exist for them. We feel it necessary to make our condemnation explicit because we have found that there is a tendency to read an absence of…

‘Ils sont tous Charlie,’ in all its colonial narcissistic splendour.There is a close relation between satire and secularism as the latter came to emerge in Europe. Secularism, as is well-known, gained strength historically as a reaction to an era of European inter-religious violence and massacres. It was not only a desire for the separation of…

For many free speech advocates the only speech deemed harmful, and so impermissible, is the “no platform” demand. Speech, though, and not just “no platform” speech, is inextricably mixed with other kinds of action.“Question everything” is an injunction that regularly surfaces in libertarian political circles. But aside from the fact it rarely becomes the focus…